"Bad Tidings" by Scott Wilson

Bad Tidings  

by Scott Wilson

Owen 

The water was deep and dark and Owen crashed into it at an alarming speed.

It was an ice bath like no other and as he broke the surface he gasped for air. His lungs felt tight and frozen. He tried to float, his head spinning from the fall, one he had not even had time to cry out from as he dropped from the cruise ships balcony. 

“Did I fall?” he asked himself, his head still fuzzy.

Owen found himself in total darkness, the only light coming from the cruise ship as it sailed away. He could even hear the music as its passengers partied on the upper deck.

“Wait! Help!” he screamed but the ship was already disappearing from sight.

Fear struck him like a hammer at the realisation that he was alone somewhere in the vast Atlantic Ocean, while his wife was sailing away. 

For such an open space he couldn’t help feeling claustrophobic. Not knowing what was below him terrified Owen and he shook and not only from the cold. 

He couldn’t understand how he had got here. Everything had been going so well. The planned dinner on their private balcony and the drinks.

“Wait! Come back!” he screamed.

The music was distant and the silence was almost as scary as the calm, ice-cold water that he was struggling to keep afloat in.

He would die here, he knew that now.

The anger changing to total panic.

“Julia!” he cried as his vision began to blur and his mouth filled with the cold sea water.

He couldn’t fight the waves for much longer.

Julia 

She had felt like she’d been kicked in the guts when she discovered the neon green thong under her side of the bed.

It wasn’t hers.  

Julia would never wear such a thing. Plus it was three sizes too small. She had not been a size 8 since she’d been fifteen.

Then she looked through her husband’s phone.

The photos were disgusting and the messages were crude.

Her husband had got himself a whore. One who was twenty years his junior and over thirty years hers.

It hurt.

Julia knew that she had put on a little weight but some of the things he had said about her in the messages were awful. They had laughed at her. 

But she had hope. 

His suggestion of a cruise was an olive branch, at least that was her interpretation.

He had spent the first two days leaching the barmaids and getting drunk. 

That was when it had occurred to her.

He wouldn’t change and her friends were right. 

He did only want her for her money.

The previous night, once he had passed out, she had looked through his things and found the sleeping tablets. Something he never used. The whisky saw to that.      

The pill bottle had his whores name on it.

Now, she had made excuses to use the facilities as the ship’s waiters brought their food in and she checked the pill bottle again. It was now almost empty.

Returning, she gave Owen a smile, but he didn’t return it. He seemed agitated and uncomfortable. The wine had been poured and he handed her a glass. Julia took it and they clinked them together.

“To us?” she asked tentatively. Praying that it was all in her imagination and that he did love her like he used to tell her. 

She would forgive. All she had ever wanted was to be loved.

“Sure” he answered with a forced smile.

“It’s not in your imagination” she told herself as a tear formed in one eye. 

She felt his eyes on her, yet he didn’t seem to notice as the tear slipped down her cheek. 

She faked a sip before taking her seat and admiring the food as she placed her glass upon the table next to his.   

It was too easy, her friends had been right, he was a fool.

She lifted his glass and took a drink.

He now watched her eagerly.

Julia returned the smile as she drank the rest of the wine before nodding towards his glass. 

He lifted it and downed the contents.

Julia’s smile widened when moments later he steadied himself on the balcony’s edge.

He looked drunk.

Nothing new. She had seen him like this daily, as had most of the crew who were now her witnesses.

His glass fell overboard and with a little help, Owen followed. 

Julia poured herself another drink as she took in the nights sky.

The clouds had cleared and now the stars sparkled.

She would give it half an hour before she would alert the crew of her drunken husbands fall.

First, she would eat her steak and then his.

All she had ever wanted was to be loved. 

She was disappointed. Not just in Owen but in herself too. She had hoped this husband would have been different to the others, lucky number seven. 

Yet he betrayed her and wound up like all the rest.

Julia took a final look down to the sea below. It resembled oil. 

The water was deep and dark.